Confusing Matters
by LaChoy
Summary: Sharpay is confusing and Troy just doesn't get anything. Troypay. [Rated T for language]


**Disclaimer: **High School Musical does not belong to me. I get no profits from this.

Um yeah. This is what we call a really long one-shot.

* * *

_"And actually, right now I like you better then I like myself.__"_

At the time, those words hadn't really registered to Troy. The last thing that had been on his mind had been deeper meanings behind the words of Sharpay Evans. But now he had time. And the Ice Princess' words had come back to him. Making him wonder if there was any sort of truth behind what she had said.

She had added in a "Did I just say that?" but he was sure she had just thrown that in for whatever reason she could have had. Who knew what Sharpay's reasoning ever was? But why would she have felt the need to say that? He was sure she loved herself more than she loved anybody else. And yet she had tried to help him with his future.

_For her own gain, _his mind reminded him and he had to agree.

But she had given the Star Dazzle award to Ryan. That had to show some kind of character.

_Look at everything she did before doing that good deed, _his mind said to him once again and he furrowed his brows in confusion. Why was she so hard to understand? She tended to go from bad to good before randomly becoming the Ice Princess again. It was confusing.

He liked to believe that Sharpay wasn't bad. At least not completely bad. She couldn't have been. Nobody was ever completely bad.

When he thought of Sharpay, his mind was attacked by vibrant colors, loud music, glitter, and other glitzy things. Thinking of Sharpay usually gave him a headache. He wasn't so good with flamboyance. He was simple. Like Gabriella. She was simple. You knew what to expect from Gabriella and that was comforting.

Sharpay? You just never knew with Sharpay. Like when she had painted her locker pink. Or when she took it upon herself to change songs around to _her _liking. To a certain degree, you had to admire her, Troy admitted to himself. She knew what she wanted and she would go after it in full force. She would have been a great team member for the Wildcats but he could see her reactions.

"_Tuesdays? You are kidding me, right? I can't possibly be expected to practice this silly little ball game with a whole bunch of sweaty guys when I have to practice for auditions!"_

"_This jersey's red is an awful shade. You really should think about another color."_

"_Get out of the showers quicker? But I smell horrible and Sharpay Evans must always smell fabulous!"_

He smiled, laughing a little. Whenever he thought of Sharpay, he laughed. It was odd but he _was_ used to that one small thing.

When he yawned, he knew it was time to get to bed. He had practice and school was tomorrow and thinking of Sharpay was tiring because she was very confusing. Besides, he had to ask her what she had meant by her words and he was sure just seeing her was going to be the most exhausting part of his day. _Sharpay_ was exhausting.

Yet he found that he was looking forward to seeing her again.

Troy had noticed a very odd occurrence ever since he was in seventh grade and that was that Sharpay was in every single homeroom he had each year. As if she tried to make sure of it. But he was sure Sharpay couldn't have possibly been able to do that. She winked at him where she was seated next to him with Ryan rolling his eyes behind her.

Or was she capable?

"So, Troy, are you going to try to get into the musical again this year with Gabriella?" It had seemed as if Gabriella had been tough to say by the look that had appeared on her face. She couldn't have possibly still disliked her, right? She had to have given up on him. She had to have known that he wasn't ever going to leave his girlfriend because he loved Gabriella.

He shrugged. "I don't know. We haven't really talked about it. I'm just not into show business, you know? And it was a lot of work. I never thought it would be so hard."

She seemed to take it as a compliment. "It is, isn't it? Well, in case you and Gabriella _do_ try out, I'll have you know Ryan and I have been working harder than ever. So, if you two do try out, don't be too disappointed if you don't make it, 'kay?" She had such a sweet smile and he was confused by what she could have possibly meant. Like always.

"Um, okay?"

When class began, Sharpay had left him even more bewildered than before.

During the summer, when he had spent a lot of time with Sharpay, he had felt nervous a lot. She had always been so close to him. Looking at him with some kind of gleam in her eye and a huge smile. Like a cat almost. Like a cat about to catch their prey. Except he wasn't a mouse and Sharpay really wasn't a cat.

But she had always touched him. Somewhere.

He'd never say it out loud to anybody. Not to Chad, he'd never take it seriously, and definitely not to Gabriella. But he had had fun with Sharpay. Not all the time. But he had. Zeke had been right. She wasn't so bad once you got to know her. Once you looked past all the glitter that always seemed to be around her, the demands, and her almost innocent rudeness. Once you looked past those things, Sharpay was funny and she knew how to have a good time.

When Taylor had told him Sharpay had faked her bad golfing skills just to get near him, he had laughed. Taylor had glared at him and he had guessed he was supposed to have been very offended. But he wasn't because it was clever. It was so very Sharpay and he should have guessed Sharpay was good at golfing. Her parents did own a country club, after all.

Sharpay had so many tricks up her sleeve. He wondered what was next. And the wondering was scary.

"Troy?"

Gabriella was looking at him and he smiled at her. He hadn't been paying attention to her.

"Sorry. Zoned out or something. What?"

"It's okay." She smiled. "I was wondering if you want to come by after school. Study or something."

"Sorry, I have plans. And tomorrow's basketball practice."

He had lied. He had had no plans.

He had no idea what he was doing. He had lied to his girlfriend so he could see Sharpay. That couldn't be right. It seemed almost like cheating. Yet he knew it wasn't because he hadn't done anything with Sharpay and he didn't plan on it. He just wanted to talk to her. Understand her.

But as he waited outside the auditorium- Kelsi was in there- he still felt guilty. It seemed wrong but he had to know. He had to ask her. He wasn't sure what. Anything or everything, he guessed. She was confusing and he wanted to figure her out.

He just hoped he wouldn't get blinded.

But he felt like he was as she walked out, in that certain way she did. She walked like she wanted eyes to be on her at all times. He supposed she did. She was Sharpay after all.

Her eyes turned to him and her face brightened, "Troy! Hi!"

He could only smile in return, "Hey Sharpay."

"So what brings you here?" She seemed nervous. He wasn't sure why. She was usually so confident.

"Actually, to talk to you," He said sheepishly.

He wasn't sure why but her eyes widened for a brief second and she seemed temporarily stunned. "Me? You want to talk to me, Troy?" Why was she surprised? He had expected her to be her usual Sharpay self. She made no sense. He didn't understand.

"Yeah, I do," he answered. He still felt nervous. "Can we go somewhere…private?" It sounded wrong and she looked at him smugly. "Just to talk! I mean, yeah. Just to talk. Nothing else."

"Of course!"

And where she was pulling him to, he had no idea but when had he ever known anything with Sharpay? But wherever he was, it was pink. Very pink. Obviously Sharpay's handiwork.

"My dressing room," she bragged. "It was a total dump before I got to it. I did a pretty good job."

"You own a dressing room?" he asked, shocked.

"Well, obviously, Troy!" She laughed. "Why wouldn't I? I am the president of the Drama Club."

"Along with Ryan, right?"

She waved her hand as if trying to brush aside the topic and smiled at him in an excited sort of way. "So, what is it you want to talk to me about?"

He wasn't sure how to begin. How could you exactly tell a girl you were confused by her? Especially Sharpay Evans. And the way she was smiling made him nervous. He was supposed to be confident but he felt anything but at that moment. He would have rather gone through another million championships than this.

"Troy? Are you going to say anything or just keep looking at me like that?"

He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. "Okay, Sharpay, before I say anything, you have to realize this isn't exactly easy on me." She looked at him like she had no idea what he was talking about. "It's just…you confuse me."

"Confuse you? I don't understand."

"I don't either! I mean, one minute you're this really great person and then you turn back into that snobby and rude Sharpay! And why did you say all those things to me this summer? Why did you tell me you liked me more than you liked yourself? Why did you try so hard to try to get me to like you when you know I love Gabriella? I don't get it."

She blinked and then looked at him, smiling more in an amused way, "I'm Sharpay Evans, Troy. Not Gabriella. I'm not some two dimensional little-"

"And why do you dislike Gabriella so much?" Troy interrupted. "She isn't nearly as bad as you make her sound!"

"She took you, my role, and even my brother for a little while. She isn't all that amazing and everybody just acts like she is. Of course I don't like the little goody," She confessed. Easily. "And I said all those things to you because I really like you," She laughed. "Duh, Troy."

"But more than you like yourself?"

"Well, sort of. I mean, when I said that, I felt like crap. But I do like you a lot. I guess so much that I like you more than I like myself. Sometimes. Not a lot but it does happen," She sighed and looked bored. Disappointed? "Is that all? I have to get back to Ryan to practice our audition."

"I just don't get why you like me so much."

"The heart wants what it wants? I can't control it," She answered, turning away from him in that very Sharpay way the clicking of her heels going against the hard floor. "I have to go back and practice."

"Why?"

"I want to get the role."

"Why?"

"So I can be in show business."

"Why?"

"Because I'm good at it!" She yelled, turning around to look at him, her eyes glittering with annoyance and it suited her, he thought in the back of his mind. "What's with all the twenty questions?"

When had they become so close? He wondered when he noticed that Sharpay's face wasn't that far away from his. He couldn't remember getting this near, at least not consciously. Why would he want to get close to a girl that wasn't Gabriella anyway?

The question left his mind when he kissed her. It wasn't very much because, of course, he had bad luck when it came to that department and was interrupted. He wondered why everything seemed to happen to him before fear flooded his senses.

"Sis, aren't you-Oh! I!-…Troy?!"

Sharpay seemed to be in shock and wasn't saying a word and Ryan was glaring. He hadn't seen him do that before but it made him feel very…uncomfortable.

"I'll…just go now," Troy mumbled, quickly making his way out of the suddenly cramped room. He was sure he heard a "Good idea" from Ryan but didn't really want to know.

He felt horrible. He had kissed Sharpay and had ultimately cheated on Gabriella. The love of his life. The one who he had thought was perfect for him. And now he wasn't very sure. All he knew was he was a jerk and he should have just left Sharpay alone. Should have just let her be confusing to him.

As he walked down the hall, he felt like everybody somehow knew because it was like everybody was looking at him. Sharpay wouldn't have told…right? Ryan wouldn't have…right? He gulped and made his way to his locker quickly, trying to avoid all the looks.

"Troy!" he jumped at the sound of his name and saw Gabriella walking towards him. What if she knew? What if she was coming to tell him how horrible he was?

"Wow, sorry. Did I scare you?" She said instead. "Actually, you look really tense. Is something wrong?"

"Um…No. No. I'm just…," he was trying to think of something and she was looking at him expectedly. "I'm worried about a test!" It was a lousy excuse but better than the actual reason, "Yeah, just worried I won't pass."

"Is it that one in English?"

"Um, yeah," He had a test in English? "That one."

She smiled at him in a reassuring way, "Don't worry too much. We studied together and I know you'll pass it."

They had studied together for it? He couldn't remember anything about that but he gave her a smile when she walked away. It seemed like a bad sign when he couldn't even remember things with his girlfriend.

"Troy!"

He jumped again and heard the laughter from his teammates. Chad walked up; laughing and he put a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa, dude. Paranoid much? I just wanted to see if we were still on for that game after school."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Totally," Troy answered.

Chad looked at him and then to his teammates, "Dude, what's wrong? You're all out of it."

"Just worried about a test," That excuse had worked before. And it was better than the actual one.

"Since when do you worry about tests?"

Since I kissed Sharpay was the first thing that came to his mind but he opted just to shrug and Chad looked at him suspiciously before walking away.

"Troy!"

He jumped less that time but was beginning to wonder why everybody seemed to want a word with him. He wasn't that special! He turned around and saw-

Ryan. He gulped. Great.

"Hey, Ryan. What brings you here?"

"Haha, Troy. Funny. You know why I'm here," Ryan said and Troy had never seen him look so serious. He felt a little intimidated. "I want to know why the hell you decided to do what you did last night."

"I don't know! It just happened! I did it without thinking," he sighed and leaned closer to Ryan, lowering his voice. "I wasn't going to take advantage of her or anything."

Ryan looked at him and actually laughed, "Yeah, like you could have taken advantage of Shar. But I want to know what you're going to do about everything. Sharpay really likes you, Troy. And you just can't go breaking her heart. Especially when this whole thing is your fault."

"It meant nothing! I didn't even really want to," he blurted out.

He heard a little cry behind Ryan and saw that it was Sharpay.

"Sharpay! I-!"

"Oh, leave me alone, you-you! You-Oh! Just leave me alone!" She yelled rather loudly, stomping away.

"Like I said, you couldn't just go breaking her heart," Ryan said, giving him a slight glare before walking away.

Troy felt horrible and he didn't really feel like seeing Sharpay in homeroom. But she was in the very back when he walked in and wouldn't look at him.

It felt like he had just destroyed something.

It seemed the Ice Princess was there to stay for good. Sharpay had actually been acting nicer and of course, that was all over. She was back to her old self. Insulting people for no real reason, pushing people out of the way, and just generally acting rude.

The worst part was that Troy knew it was his fault. That he had brought this cold and impolite Sharpay back. He hadn't really meant what he said. The kiss had meant something; he just wasn't very sure what. But he couldn't tell her that because he was scared. And he was sure she'd never talk to him again.

Chad kept telling him he was lucky she gave up on him but he was missing her winks, her little smiles, and how she'd wave at him every time she'd see him. He was actually even beginning to miss all that glitter she always seemed to have. They really were just small things but he missed them all the same.

As she walked past him in lunch, she sent him an angry look and he tried to pretend to he hadn't seen it. After all, he could just pretend nothing had ever happened and that he had never actually liked Sharpay.

"Wow, did Sharpay just glare at you? I thought she liked you," Gabriella noted, frowning in thought. Why did she have to notice? He wanted to pretend nothing was going on.

"Lucky, huh?" Chad said. "Finally, no more Godzilla breathing down your neck, huh, Troy?"

"Huh? Yeah. No more Godzilla."

"I don't know, guys. It looks like something bad happened to her. I think she only acts mean when she gets hurt. I wonder who hurt her," Zeke commented and everybody gave him a bewildered look.

"What are you? A Sharpay expert?" Chad jokingly asked and Zeke just shrugged.

And Troy was beginning to find he couldn't escape Sharpay. Especially when it seemed they were always passing each other in the hall, or when the History teacher decided everybody needed their sitting arrangements changed and he was behind Sharpay, or when Ms. Darbus had them recite something together. No, there was no avoiding Sharpay.

And he'd begun to notice little things too. Like she seemed to brush her hair five times a day, or that she seemed to match with Ryan a lot, her hair smelled like this weird fruit he couldn't name but smelled great, and she never stepped on cracks. He wasn't sure how he had become aware of it all or why he had.

And scarily enough, his mind kept going back to the kiss with her. It hadn't even been a kiss really, but his mind kept going back to it. The scariest thing of all, he noticed, was that he usually smiled when he remembered. He had liked the kiss and he knew he shouldn't have. But he had also found that he didn't like kissing Gabriella as much. He didn't want to be around her a lot anymore and instead of thinking about her, he'd be thinking of plans to talk to Sharpay.

He liked Sharpay. He _liked _Sharpay.

He had to talk to her. He had to make things right because he was afraid he'd go crazy otherwise.

Trying to talk to Sharpay wasn't as easy as the first time. This time he knew she wasn't going to be happy to see him. He was expecting her to probably yell at him or something but he had to make things right.

He found himself waiting outside the auditorium, pacing, trying to figure out what to say. Everything had to be perfect. He had to say the perfect words, in the most perfect way imaginable, and he had to look perfect and--

"Troy? What are you doing here?"

--Ryan.

"Um, to talk to Sharpay?"

"About what? How you hurt her? Or do you just want to kiss her again and feel good about yourself?" Ryan said and Troy flinched from the coldness in his tone. "I'm not about to let you hurt my sister again, Troy."

"I didn't mean to! I just blurted it out. I didn't mean it meant nothing because it meant a lot and-"

"And what? If you're going to let things slip like that, then why should I let you near my sister? Who knows what you might say next."

Troy let out a nervous breath and nodded, "I know. I did it to Gabriella too. I say things I don't mean just to make people happy. Or myself. I don't know. But Ryan, I really like Sharpay. I _really_ do."

"What about Gabriella?" Ryan asked, looking suspicious still.

"Things just aren't the same with her anymore," Troy admitted. "I plan on talking to her next. But I think Sharpay needs to hear this first because I know I hurt her and I shouldn't have."

"Troy, I accept your apology."

Both boys turned around to see Sharpay standing there, smiling.

"I heard the whole thing. And Ryan, thanks for the whole 'protective brother' thing but Troy and I need to talk," she said and Ryan walked back into the auditorium before giving Troy one last warning glare. "And you, Troy, let's go to my dressing room."

He just nodded and followed her, breathing heavily. His hands were shaking.

"You know, I still think you're a jerk," She said when they got inside, her hand on her hip. "And I still want to slap you really hard for hurting me like that. You took my first kiss, you ass."

His eyes widened, "Really? I didn't know."

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, yeah. Arrogant blonde, must be a slut too, right? But this Sharpay doesn't let just any guy near her, Troy. I deserve the best and so my first kiss had to be the best. And it wasn't. We got interrupted before it could turn into a proper kiss and then you say it meant nothing when it meant the world to me."

"I'm so sorry, Sharpay. I didn't know. And I know I was a total asshole. I can't blame you if you hate me and never want to talk to me again. I'd totally under-"

"Oh, give it a rest, Troy. Your little self hatred speech is stupid because I already said I forgave you," She sighed dramatically. "Even though your apology isn't exactly poetry, I know you're sincere and that's why I forgive you," She wrapped her arms around him, smiling at him.

"I don't get it, Sharpay. You're forgiving me so easily."

She leaned her face in closer, "That's because I like you, Troy. I'm going to forgive you no matter how long it takes for you to understand simple facts. But before I kiss you and get the kiss I deserve, I want to know for sure you're going to do something with that Gabriella. I don't feel like sharing you and you did say you were going to talk to her."

"Yeah, I promise I'll talk to her."

"And make her burst into tears and run away, never to be heard of again?"

"What? No! I still want to be friends with her. She's a great girl."

"You're definitely an idiot but kiss me anyway."

And so he did, this time, not excusing it.


End file.
